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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

I almost did a Chicago sports team theme last night, but after the Blackhawks lost I gave up on that feel-good idea. Instead I played a lot of new music, and especially enjoyed Thao & Mirah. Their harmonies were made for each other. Oh, come to Rodan this Friday after 10pm. I'm DJing until 2am.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Leading up to Easter, I endured three straight nights of DJing on all three sides of Chicago. First was Simone's on the south side. This was Wednesday, at a bar I've never been to but have heard nice things about. It's located on 18th street, on the other side of the railroad tracks near Halsted. Just east of these tracks is an apartment above a little Mexican grocery store where I lived at least three different times throughout college. It was a place where a lot of kids crashed for a night/week/month, either on a couch or floor. I always brought my own air mattress, so I was living it up.

Simone's didn't yet exist when I was living in Pilsen, but the neighborhood has seen a bit of gentrification since Simone's and other places like it came in. It's a pretty spacious place, more of a restaurant than a bar. My DJ booth was in the middle of everything, up a small flight of stairs in a space-agey cage. Pinball machines made for wall decorations. 80s' movies played on the TVs. But everybody remained seated throughout the night. There wasn't a dance floor, so it was a fun, low-pressure night for this rookie DJ.

One thing I learned during this gig trilogy is the value of a friendly staff. The waitresses, bartenders and management at Simone's were all very cool. They gave me 10 drink tickets. Obviously not all for myself, but for any friends I invited over. Only a few of my buddies showed up, but we couldn't even get through all of those tickets. All said, I'd be happy to go south again for another set at Simone's.

Thursday started out huge. I woke up to a call from Chipotle, letting me know that my business card had been picked out of their fishbowl, meaning I had won 10 free burritos. I took this as incentive to get people to come out to my gig for the evening. Whoever showed up to my gig that night would get one of the free burritos. I was scheduled to spin in the bar area of the Bottom Lounge, and planned to arrive a little early to watch the Bulls game on their TVs. Sounds exciting, right? It all went according to plan, I had my burritos and Bulls at Bottom Lounge, but then the Bottom Lounge staff came into play.

I don't know if these people want to maintain their punk cred or what, but most of them were remarkably rude and unpleasant. So even if they asked me back, nah. I won't DJ there ever again. In spite of all the good things that happened on this day, I left the west side feeling pretty cranky. I actually don't even want to go to the Bottom Lounge for a show if I can help it now. I mean, who's still trying to be punk? Wrong century, kids.

But the best experience was Friday in Wicker Park. I was booked at Rodan for 10pm to 2am, moved ahead from a week later. Literally five minutes before I went on, the manager asked me aside. There was a mix up. Apparently, every 4th Friday of the month at Rodan is reserved for the Soul-Glo guys. So there was a double booking. I suggested just going for an hour, and then returning a week later for my full set. She and the Soul-Glo DJs agreed to this, and Rodan paid me better for that one hour than any other gig I've had so far.

The staff were apologetic, professional and courteous all night, and I cannot wait to go back there this Friday (4/29) to work with those good people again. If I could get anything regular anywhere, Rodan wins by a mile. So if you need to get out this weekend, come to the north side's crotch and we'll hang out at Rodan. If people start dancing, we might even be able to call it a party.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tonight I'm DJing in Pilsen at Simone's on 18th. Tomorrow I'm going to watch the Bulls game at Bottom Lounge, then DJ in the bar while Appleseed Cast plays further in. Then Friday I'm DJing Rodan in the crotch of Wicker Park. I'd encourage you dear readers to come out, but we've had the most depressing weather this week, so I'll understand if you just want to stay in and watch Twin Peaks on Netflix Instant. But I had my usual CHIRP shift last night too, fresh off tabling the Delorean show at Lincoln Hall. For some reason, the songs are all out of order, but here's what I played:

Friday, April 15, 2011

When you decide to be a DJ, a lot of things happen at once. First, you can no longer play a song solely for your self. You turn what used to be personal enjoyment into a grueling job, accepting money in exchange for a less dignified taste in music. It's humbling work for a music-lover, but work that may alternately indulge the ego and increase self-confidence. Of all the people in the bar, there is only one person playing the music. You. Girls flirt with you for no other reason than to hear an Usher song. They touch your arm, and you say "yes." Endorphins run wild. It's hard to fall asleep the night after a good party. But you keep the party on. You keep them thirsty.

DJs need alcohol. That is, we need people to buy drinks from the bar. Two reasons we need people to drink: dancing, and a higher payout at the end of the night. At least for rookie DJs, for most of our gigs we are paid according to a percentage of the bar sales. This is why your annoying DJ friends are always asking you to come out to their gigs on Thursday nights. They are promoters as much as they are taste-makers. And sometimes they're not even taste-makers, they just take requests for a few hours and act cool behind a laptop.

I had the opportunity to DJ at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Music last week. I had the last slot on the schedule. After shows by Matisyahu, My Brightest Diamond, The Civil Wars and Jon Foreman, Dylan Peterson DJed on Saturday night.

On my drive up to Grand Rapids, I wondered, "what kind of kids are going to come out for this? A Saturday night, on campus, without alcohol... Am I going to bomb?" Up until this point, I had only DJed in places where the alcohol was the selling point, and not the DJ. People had fun at my gigs because they were buzzed. How will the people of "faith" react to my set?

My set started quietly, with some remixes of HEALTH by Little Loud. Only a few kids were in the space, dancing probably out of pity, or boredom. But about 15 minutes after I started a stampede of people charged in with balloons, party hats and foam glasses. They were dancing before they even knew what song was on, so I quickly threw on Gettin' Jiggy With It to see how they'd handle it. These kids moved every inch on their bodies. There wasn't even a pivot foot on the floor. It was insanity.

And this went on for two straight hours. Past midnight. On a Saturday night. On the campus of a Christian college.

It reminded me of an interview I did with Ratatat a few years prior. They played a show at Calvin College, and told me that the kids there were crazier than any other city in the country. They guessed that the kids must have been drinking paint thinner or something, because they never saw anything like it.

I thought the same thing last week. There was no way these kids could be dancing as hard as they were without some foreign substance inspiring their movement.

But this week I've been thinking about it, and it's starting to make sense. Even though it's liberal compared to other Christian universities, Calvin is still a Bible college. A lot of restraint is encouraged at this school, under a guise of "personal discernment." This was the school that less than a year ago, cancelled a New Pornographers concert on campus for the sole reason that the band's name wasn't savory. This school is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the only real cultural attraction in the town is Rob Bell's Mars Hill church.

These kids are champagne trapped under a thumb, and I popped the cork last weekend. In Chicago where we drink every other night, there's no pressure to dance. But at Calvin College, you might hold yourself back for months until a fleeting moment actually gives you a chance to release some energy. It was a blast to be able to play music for these kids who didn't need anything other than their own excitement in order to go crazy.

However, I noticed that when they haven't had anything to drink, the girls don't flirt as hard with me. And while that's not as great for the old self-confidence, at least they dance.

Because, ultimately, being a DJ is just being a part of the crowd. If the mob demands Black Eyed Peas, they will get Black Eyed Peas. And the DJ will get retarded with them. It's a communal experience, moving around to rhythms. There's no time for taste when we're dancing. No time for discernment. It's just about movement. So whether I'm at a Christian college in Michigan or a gay bar in Chicago, we're all just having some fun.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I played tracks from upcoming Fleet Foxes, Times New Viking and Battles. 2011 is doing it right with the new music. And more "Welcomes" shows around town this year too. I'll be tabling at the "CHIRP Welcomes Delorean" show on Tuesday at Lincoln Hall, come say hi and get your mind blown out the back of your skull by Delorean's live show. We're so lucky that they're already back for another tour. Don't miss this one.

12:02AMHoly Ghost! Jam for Jerry from Holy Ghost! (DFA)

12:07AMMenomena Strongest Man In the World from I Am the Fun Blame Monster (FILMguererro)

12:15AMFleet Foxes Montezuma from Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)

12:18AMMaritime Apple of My Irony from Human Hearts (Dangerbird)

12:21AMThe Kinks David Watts from Something Else By the Kinks (Reprise)

Saturday, April 09, 2011

In spite of their venue, Cut Copy almost made the acoustics in the Riviera sound adequate last night. Dan Whitford's baritone sounded just as rich live as it does on record, every synth and guitar was working in perfect harmony, and the beats were unnaturally tight. It probably wasn't unlike the first time people heard Joy Division. But on this night, Cut Copy were doing their best New Order impersonation. The sound was huge, and it got warm as hell in there.

The crowd had its hands up from the front to the back, and they were all dancing too. Even up in the balcony, dancing. I even saw one girl pull a security guard over to dance with her. Not sure if that was a distraction for her friends to get backstage or what, but still, it was fun to see even the stereotypically stoic tough guy getting down to some synth pop.

When Whitford made predictions between songs like "things are about to get crazy in here," he turned out to be right every time. Lights and Music was the craziest song of the night, in a meta-ironic sort of way (lights and music certainly were on all of our minds...). Whitford sang with his arms and hands stretching all around, which got hyper-meta-ironic when he got to the chorus of Hearts of Fire ("I reach out to you tonight"). It was a feel-good show from start to finish, but Take Me Over, one of the highlights of their 2011 album, Zonoscope, was the feel-good song of night.

A neat little gimmick was the plain white door set up in the center of the stage. It was lined with LED lights, and a few songs into the set the door suddenly became a backdrop for vivid and surreal projections. The most common images were white clouds on blue skies, a sight Chicagoans are tired of dreaming of. But even though it was another damp, cold and cloudy night, spring seemed closer than ever inside the Riviera. The sights and sounds of Cut Copy helped thaw us out a bit.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

New music from Hauschka, Low and TV on the Radio this week, and I'll probably play something from the new Fleet Foxes next week. There is some good stuff coming out right now, and I will play all of it on CHIRP. Oh, and even though I won't be there (I'm DJing at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Music this weekend), the CHIRP Record Fair is this Saturday and Sunday. Go to it.

12:02AMLow Especially Me from C'mon (Sub Pop)

12:07AMSimon & Garfunkel Leaves That Are Green from Sounds of Silence (Columbia)

12:10AMSoft Speaker Breaking Bones from Conditions (self-released)

12:15AMTV On the Radio Second Song from Nine Types of Light (Interscope)

12:19AMJoan As Police Woman Run For Love from The Deep Field (PIAS)

12:26AMNick Drake Cello Song from Five Leaves Left (Island)

12:30AMCrystal Stilts Invisible City from In Love with Oblivion (Slumberland)

12:36AMThe Mekons Ghosts Of American Astronauts from So Good It Hurts (Twin/Tone)